{"id":118376,"date":"2019-09-20T15:38:25","date_gmt":"2019-09-20T15:38:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/2019\/09\/20\/mother-doesnt-know-best\/"},"modified":"2023-10-03T13:53:43","modified_gmt":"2023-10-03T17:53:43","slug":"mother-doesnt-know-best","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/2019\/09\/mother-doesnt-know-best\/","title":{"rendered":"Mother doesn\u2019t know best"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro\u2014the composer\u2019s birthplace on the Adriatic\u2014it is always a treat when a major work of the composer\u2019s maturity, such as one of his later Neapolitan operas or his Parisian works, is included among the three principal offerings. Such was the case this year when the festival produced his very last Italian opera, Semiramide<\/i>, which was first seen in Venice in 1823, not long before Rossini moved to Paris. It should be borne in mind that Rossini\u2019s mature years as an opera composer extended only to 1829, when at thirty-seven he stopped writing them altogether, but if any opera can be considered the crowning glory of his Italian career (which, of course, is most of his career) it is Semiramide<\/i>. And there is nothing immature about it.<\/p>\n

At the time of the work\u2019s composition, most operagoers would have associated its subject with Pietro Metastasio\u2019s libretto of the same title, which had been set to music by numerous composers. Rossini\u2019s opera, with a new libretto by Gaetano Rossi, eclipsed all these renditions but went through its own period of temporary eclipse, only to be rediscovered in the latter part of the twentieth century. Unlike Metastasio\u2019s version, it is based on Voltaire\u2019s tragedy S\u00e9miramis<\/i>. An Oedipal encounter between Semiramide, the queen of Babylon, and Ninia, her long-lost son who under the name of Arsace has forged a brilliant military career, is intimated when Semiramide chooses Arsace as Babylon\u2019s new king and her husband. Their wedding is stopped and the marriage averted by the timely appearance of the ghost of Semiramide\u2019s husband, Nino. New problems arise for Arsace, however, when he learns that he is Semiramide\u2019s son and that she was complicit in his father\u2019s murder by the prince Assur. The situation lands Arsace in a classic operatic dilemma: he is duty-bound to avenge his father\u2019s murder, but to do so requires the death of his mother.<\/p>\n

The drama unfolds at a leisurely pace in a series of magnificent, formally expansive musical numbers, over the course of which the principal characters emerge as flesh-and-blood personages. Besides the central dilemma, Arsace faces uncertainty in his relationship with his beloved, the princess Azema. Semiramide\u2019s reunion with her son only intensifies her anguish over the remorse she feels for her role in her husband\u2019s death. The declining fortunes of Assur, who once aspired to the throne, gradually reduce him to a desperate, mentally unhinged figure.<\/p>\n

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The company and set of <\/em>Semiramide. Photo: Studio Amati Bacciardi.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

The principal strength of Graham Vick\u2019s staging was that it never lost sight of the emotional essence of the characters, despite a number of superfluous details. The stage of Vitrifrigo Arena was interestingly configured with platforms on either side, of which Vick made good use in delineating the plot, and he even had a runway in front of the orchestra pit, which allowed the characters closer proximity to the audience. On one of the platforms, though, was a child\u2019s twin bed, as if Vick were engaging in a little armchair psychology about the effects on Semiramide of having lost track of her son (although Arsace was drawn to the bed too). An oversized teddy bear was present during the orchestral prelude to Semiramide\u2019s big aria, \u201cBel raggio lusinghier,\u201d and chalk was available for the characters to scrawl their thoughts on the walls. Stuart Nunn\u2019s decor included a massive eye on the backdrop, looking out toward the audience. Strangely, but effectively, Vick portrayed the priests of the Magi as scantily clad figures who could have been members of some Indian ascetic cult. For the most part, though, the timeframe was updated to the present without serious damage.<\/p>\n

The cast (as seen on August 20) was not one for the ages, but was well balanced and succeeded in putting the opera across. The young soprano Salome Jicia, who came to prominence here three years ago in La donna del lago<\/i>, sang confidently with a sturdy voice that was short on luster, although her characterization had dramatic flair. Seeing Semiramide wearing a pantsuit at her entrance was a bit of a shock; Jicia\u2019s appearance sometimes reminded me of Theresa May.<\/p>\n

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Varduhi Abrahamyan and Salome Jicia in <\/em>Semiramide. Photo: Studio Amati Bacciardi.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Somewhat better was Varduhi Abrahamyan in the trouser role of Arsace. To my taste, her dusky mezzo-soprano could have had more focus, but she also gave an involving, technically secure performance, and she looked good in a leather pantsuit that alluringly, though bizarrely (given that she was portraying a young man), played up her feminine sexuality with a low-cut top. Nahuel di Pierro\u2019s bass voice at first sounded a size too small for Assur, but he too offered an arresting portrayal, not least when suggesting Assur\u2019s incipient madness. The Indian king Idreno is peripheral to the plot but has two big arias, to which the tenor Antonino Siragusa brought a strong and metallic, if at times harsh, tone. Martiniana Antonie sang prettily what little music Rossini gave Azema, and two imposing basses, Carlo Cigni and Sergey Artamonov, were heard as the high priest Oroe and the Ghost of Nino, respectively. Michele Mariotti ably conducted the Chorus of the Teatro Ventidio Basso and the National Symphony Orchestra of rai<\/span>.<\/p>\n

In his book Divas and Scholars<\/i>, the late Rossini expert Philip Gossett spoke of his experience as an advisor to the Metropolitan Opera\u2019s celebrated 1990 revival of Semiramide<\/i>, mentioning in particular, in connection with Assur\u2019s \u201cmad scene\u201d aria, the predilection of modern basses to end the aria on a tonic high F<\/small> (an octave above what Rossini wrote) and the attendant problem created by sustaining that note during the orchestral postlude, in which tonic and dominant harmonies alternate: the singer\u2019s F<\/small> conflicts with the dominant harmony each time the latter occurs. It was depressing to find Mariotti tolerating a sustained high F<\/small> from Di Pierro and the resulting harmonic clashes. But the sad fact is that singers nowadays hold on to final high notes for all they are worth, and only a few stylistically conscious conductors\u2014Mariotti not among them\u2014seem to care. Pesaro deserves better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On <\/i>Semiramide at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, Italy.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2243,"featured_media":118377,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_eb_attr":"","advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","wds_primary_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[472],"tags":[712,1017,1687],"dispatch-city":[],"acf":{"participants":{"simple_value_formatted":"","value_formatted":null,"value":null,"field":{"ID":0,"key":"field_65fb0bff29d65","label":"Participants","name":"participants","aria-label":"","prefix":"acf","type":"user","value":null,"menu_order":0,"instructions":"","required":0,"id":"","class":"","conditional_logic":0,"parent":"group_651c53615a3f7","wrapper":{"width":"","class":"","id":""},"role":"","return_format":"object","multiple":1,"allow_null":0,"bidirectional":0,"bidirectional_target":[],"_name":"participants","_valid":1}},"featured_image_credits":{"simple_value_formatted":"Martiniana Antonie & company in <\/i>Semiramide. Photo: Studio Amati Bacciardi.<\/i>","value_formatted":"Martiniana Antonie & company in <\/i>Semiramide. Photo: Studio Amati Bacciardi.<\/i>","value":"Martiniana Antonie & company in <\/i>Semiramide. Photo: Studio Amati Bacciardi.<\/i>","field":{"ID":0,"key":"field_651c536113a8e","label":"Featured Image Credits","name":"featured_image_credits","aria-label":"","prefix":"acf","type":"wysiwyg","value":null,"menu_order":1,"instructions":"","required":0,"id":"","class":"","conditional_logic":0,"parent":"group_651c53615a3f7","wrapper":{"width":"","class":"","id":""},"default_value":"","tabs":"all","toolbar":"basic","media_upload":0,"delay":0,"_name":"featured_image_credits","_valid":1}},"enable_paywall":{"simple_value_formatted":"No","value_formatted":false,"value":0,"field":{"ID":0,"key":"field_66009169342f2","label":"Enable Paywall","name":"enable_paywall","aria-label":"","prefix":"acf","type":"true_false","value":null,"menu_order":2,"instructions":"","required":0,"id":"","class":"","conditional_logic":0,"parent":"group_651c53615a3f7","wrapper":{"width":"","class":"","id":""},"message":"","default_value":0,"ui":0,"ui_on_text":"","ui_off_text":"","_name":"enable_paywall","_valid":1}}},"author_meta":{"display_name":"George Loomis","author_link":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/author\/george-loomis\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/DSC03455-300x210.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/DSC03455-scaled.jpg","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["Dispatch<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Dispatch<\/span>"]},"tags":{"linked":["Opera<\/a>","Rossini<\/a>","Semiramide<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Opera<\/span>","Rossini<\/span>","Semiramide<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":0,"relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 5 years ago","modified":"Updated 7 months ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on September 20, 2019","modified":"Updated on October 3, 2023"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on September 20, 2019 3:38 pm","modified":"Updated on October 3, 2023 1:53 pm"},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"mfb_rest_fields":["author_meta","featured_img","jetpack_sharing_enabled","jetpack_featured_media_url","coauthors","tax_additional","comment_count","relative_dates","absolute_dates","absolute_dates_time","featured_img_caption","series_order","jetpack-related-posts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118376"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2243"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118376"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118376\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":118379,"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118376\/revisions\/118379"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118376"},{"taxonomy":"dispatch-city","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/dispatch-city?post=118376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}